


flight of fancy

by Runespoor



Category: Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 13:43:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5377385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runespoor/pseuds/Runespoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of the reasons Travant lets his mind be occupied with Cuan of Lenster is that they have the same ambition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	flight of fancy

**Author's Note:**

> Because if I have to entertain considerations about Travant's romantic life and Cuan and the sad and utter incompatibility between the two, I'm going to inflict them upon the Internet at large.

Sometimes, in the murky evenings when Travant’s going over endless ledgers that all point to his country’s bankruptcy – or the bright days when the wind bites at his cheeks and his wyvern is flying so high it seems he could embrace the whole peninsula with one look – sometimes his mind, similar to a wyvern circling endlessly over the mountains, will turn toward Lenster, and to its sparkling, scheming, arrogant prince.

He’s not a man of subtle ambitions, is Cuan of Lenster, and they’ve known of each other’s designs on their brother lands for a while now; Travant’s met him sometimes when diplomacy or the appearance of such demanded, or in foreign courts that had need for Thracia’s mercenaries. 

Cuan of Lenster is a charming man dressed to the latest continental fashion, who favors flowing silk cravats forever wrapped around his neck, pinned with extravagant jewels, and wears his hair short like a Grandbellian, playing civilized to the hilt, talking loud about the barbaric hordes of Southern Thracia, distancing himself, cultivating friendships in Grandbell, in Agustria. Feathers of a peacock, mind of a snake. 

Principles alone would make sure they wouldn’t get along even if they weren’t born on opposite sides of the Lenster-Thracia border and hungry for the other half. 

And yet…

Sometimes, circling like a wyvern over Thracia, Travant’s thoughts bring him back to Lenster’s prince, who did a good marriage recently, to the sister of his Grandbellian friend. 

He saw her at their wedding, having been invited due to appearances of diplomacy or Cuan’s peculiar brand of showy point-making; Travant doesn’t doubt for one moment Cuan’s spy network keeps him informed on Travant’s lack of a recognized heir and general disinterest in female liaisons. It wouldn’t surprise him much if Cuan kept close enough tabs on his private life to know of his one living bastard. He might even keep close enough tabs to know whether there’s some other child Travant doesn’t know about! He’d amused himself with the thought of going forward and asking Cuan directly. Cuan of Lenster isn’t much good at directness, exemplified by his systematic avoidance of Travant for the whole feast. Making a point as rudely as a host might try to get away with, but with the appearance of diplomacy. 

Cuan’s bride crossed over to Travant at one lull in the festivities, made small talk and a stunningly straight-forward attempt to convince him of letting go of the last in a long series of borderland disputes between Thracia and Lenster. Lovely energetic woman, not at all the sort of woman Travant would’ve thought was Cuan’s type. Very brave, very nice. Gossip said it was a love match, and from seeing Cuan laughing every time Ethlyn smiled and catch her hand whenever she let go of her fork, he was indeed as besotted with her as she clearly was with him.

As terrible at politics as her husband, not that Travant holds it against her. 

Like a circling wyvern, sometimes Travant’s thoughts circle over improbabilities and missed chances. Cuan of Lenster’s refusal to let Lenster fall to Thracia is a perpetual thorn in Travant’s side, Cuan’s ambition an unwavering rival to Travant’s own, and his machinations a constant source of unrest in the peninsula. It’s a shame, Travant thinks, that Cuan wouldn’t want to conquer Miletos or Phinora instead; and a shame that even if he did suddenly turn there, changed by marriage, marriage also changed him into a faithful husband.

Sometimes the ouroborous of Travant’s thoughts gets lost in what-ifs. When he drifts into reverie and can consider Cuan’s plots and recklessness with a semblance of detachment, over maps of Jugdral when he hears of Cuan’s latest ploy with his Agustrian friend (so far away, so far from Thracia) or over the mountains of Thracia when he sees afar the cavalry of Lenster galloping over their verdant hills (so close, and unattainable), the Gungnir by his side the sister to the Gae Bolg Cuan is heir to. They’re cousins, brothers, descendants of sibling crusaders, and out of all the dukes and kings of the peninsula, they’re the only ones holding to the dream of a unified Thracia; would that he could call Cuan an ally. A shame that Cuan didn’t pick on his closer neighbors before announcing his sights on Thracia, then. 

A shame. 

Travant wouldn’t have been opposed to such an alliance.


End file.
